


the christmas shitshow

by kintou



Series: christmas specials [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Christmas Special, Fluff, M/M, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:09:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21961879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kintou/pseuds/kintou
Summary: Jean's Christmas has been a shitshow; his boyfriend broke up with him, his mother is on a vacation, and everything seems to go wrong. He decides to at least get a Christmas tree, but together with this tree he finds an angel sent to give him the Christmas spirit and ugly decoration.
Relationships: Marco Bott & Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein
Series: christmas specials [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1573411
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	the christmas shitshow

My entire Christmas had been a damn shitshow. Worst Christmas ever; that’s what I thought it would be. I had thought I would spend my Christmas with my boyfriend’s family. Things hadn’t been awesome between us, it was about time it came to an end, but I hadn’t expected him to break up with me right before Christmas. Maybe he didn’t feel like sitting between happy couples, maybe he didn’t want his grandparents to give me money anymore. Whatever. He thought three weeks before Christmas was the best time to break up with me. I couldn’t blame him, seeing how I wasn’t even upset about it. It was nothing more than inconvenient. 

I didn’t tell my mum. She had booked a vacation with her long time lover for the first time. I told her I’d be spending my Christmas with my boyfriend anyway; that she didn’t have to worry about me. One word of me breaking up with my boyfriend and she would have canceled. I would tell her about the breakup after she’d come back. There was no way I was ruining her vacation because of my shit week. 

Or shit month. 

Shit Christmas. 

I could feel the tiredness in my body. I hadn’t expected to miss the Christmas mood. I hadn’t expected to miss my mums baking, or my boyfriends decoration in my apartment. I hadn’t expected to miss the Christmas tree. Still I missed it. I missed the scent, the looks of it, the lights inside of it, the chocolate wreaths. 

I hadn’t expected myself to be so sentimental. 

But before my rational side could even object, my tired ass was sitting in my car, driving to a Christmas tree farm. I’d still have to go get decoration from somewhere. Those things had never been mine. I guess that was fine; I’d have to keep myself busy anyway. With the snow on the road I’d be so damn slow that I’d be lucky if I had that tree ones Christmas came along. 

I parked the car near the farm and got out. A cold wind hit my cheeks, my neck. My coat wasn’t the warmest one around. Maybe they had some coffee at the farm, that would be fucking awesome.

Slowly I walked around the farm. The Christmas trees were lined up. A few big ones were decorated, others were waiting for people like me to pick them up. Or actually; not people like me. They were waiting for a happy family to pick them up. A family who’d get their kids to put chocolate wreaths in, who’d get mad because of the Christmas lights. Stuff like that. 

Whatever. There were trees. A lot of them. 

The farm somehow calmed me. I slowly walked through the snow, stood still in front of a few trees. I didn’t need a big one like the ones I saw. I’d have to carry it by myself. 

That was a thing now. 

Being single was simple like that. I didn’t miss him; just realising that you need to carry a tree all by myself. So I stared at a middle length one.

‘Hello!’ Someone called from behind me. 

I turned around, surprised by the sudden voice in this quiet place. ‘Hi,’ I mumbled. 

‘Can I help you, with your tree?’ The guy was grinning. He had a bright, slightly tanned, face. He looked like he’d seen summer only yesterday. It was a mitch-match with the snow; if he hadn’t been wearing a thick red scarf and a Christmas sweater. 

“Uhm.. I need a.. a tree that isn’t too big.’ Way to make myself sound stupid in front of some hot guy. ‘Like, one that I can carry by myself.’ 

He nodded. ‘Sure. Like the one we’re looking at? It’s a nice full one.’ 

I just nodded. I didn’t really care. ‘Yeah sure.’ 

‘Let me get you that one, then.’ He said. Quickly he picked the tree up and threw it on his shoulder. He almost gave me a heart attack. 

Strong and hot. Okay. Good to fucking know. I’d be dreaming of those hands, damn. 

‘Should I help?’, I asked quickly. 

He chuckled. ‘You know that this is my job, right? This is nothing.’ 

‘That’s amazing.’ 

He blushed. I wondered if he never heard things like this. C’mon.. He went around carrying whole trees on his shoulder. How could he not have?

‘It’s nothing,’ he repeated. 

‘I bet you’re making all the housewives imagine you carrying them princess style.’ 

He laughed, put the tree against the small farmhouse. ‘Is that what you’re imagining?’ 

I glanced at him, blushed. ‘Do I look like a housewife to you?’ 

‘Nope,’ He put a net around my tree, skillfully. ‘But you’re the first one saying something like that to me.’ 

‘Huh, I can’t imagine.’ 

He chuckled. ‘Maybe because you like to be carried princess style.’ 

‘Not really. Can’t deny liking men who can carry entire trees, though’ 

‘Well-’ he fell into silence, stared at me with wide eyes. 

‘Shit,’ I mumbled. ‘I mean-’ 

But before I could say any more he was laughing brightly. In between laughs he said something like ‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ and I couldn’t help but think;  _ I can’t fucking believe that either.  _ Despite his laughs, he didn’t exactly seem put off by my words. 

When he finally calmed down he mumbled: ‘You’re.. quite straightforward.’ 

I blushed but smiled. ‘Ha.. yeah, don’t have a filter.’ 

He walked with me towards the cash register. ‘I like that. Uhm.. the tree will be twenty dollar.’ 

I pulled out a bill. Handed it to him. He put it away, glanced up at me shyly. Actually; he seemed interested. Like.. genuinely interested by my straightforwardness.    
I wondered if this was it. If he was just going to let me pay up and leave. 

Maybe I was expecting too much from this shitty week. 

This shitty Christmas. 

‘Thank you! Have a lovely Christmas.’ 

‘Uhm..’ I stared into his eyes. They were deep brown; perfect to fucking drown in. ‘Do you maybe have tips.. for buying decorations? My fucking ex took all of mine.’ 

That’s when he laughed. I don’t know why; maybe it was the way I had said it. He didn’t take time to feel sad for me. ‘I buy all of mine second hand. I mean; there are a lot of stores who sell them but.. old Christmas decoration is the best.’ 

‘Could you maybe recommend some stores?’ 

He got out a paper. ‘Sure.’ He started writing some names but stopped halfway through. He seemed to be thinking. ‘It’s quite a lot. Would you- maybe this is stupid- but would you like me to come with you?’ 

I guess I went wide eyed, because he got shy about it. 

‘Today?’ I asked. A stupid fucking question. 

He shook his head. ‘I’m free tomorrow. Don’t feel like you have to, of-’ 

‘Yes.’ Now it was his time to go wide eyed, and to blush even more. ‘That would be cool.’ 

He grinned. ‘Cool.’ He scratched everything he had written and wrote something else. When he handed me the note I read: 

_ Marco -  _ _ 202-555- _ _ XXX _

For a second I just looked at that note. I really just.. got the handsome guy’s number. Maybe I still had game. Maybe I was a bit more.. likeable than my ex (and myself too) had made me think. ‘Thanks’ I turned to my tree. ‘Uhm.. then I’ll be going.’ 

I tried to pick the tree up, held it awkwardly. The needles pinched my arm. I wondered how the hell Marco had carried it. But then he suddenly moved, took the tree from my hands. ‘I can bring it to your car,’ he said.

‘Or we could do it together.’ 

I guess he agreed, because we carried the tree to my car calmly. Maybe placed it into my car easily, knowing exactly how to. I watched his skillful hands put away my tree, tried to learn from him when I had to get it out again. ‘And..’ he closed the door, ‘all set.’ 

I chuckled. ‘Thanks, Marco.’ 

He perked up at the sound of his name. ‘Anytime...’ 

‘Jean,’ I said. 

‘Jean.. that’s nice,’ he repeated. ‘So.. shall I pick you up tomorrow?’ 

‘Yeah. I’ll be looking forward to it.’ 

He had me excited for the next morning. I had texted him a time, and he’d been fine with it. I woke up early, something I rarely did. I put on a dark blue sweater, my nice jeans and I fixed my hair. 

When I went downstairs made myself an omelette, and a cup of coffee. I tried to take care of myself as well as possible. It was the first time in forever that the apartment didn’t feel empty.

I filled it with the smell of food, with some jazz. 

It had always been my apartment; my home. It just hadn’t always felt that way. 

But now that it was supposed to feel empty, with snow behind the windows and an empty Christmas tree, it didn’t feel that way at all. 

Marco rang the bell five minutes early. When I opened the door his cheeks were red from the cold. He was wearing a thick brown coat and the same red scarf. He had a soft smile on his face. 

He was still handsome. Even more than he had been in my fantasies. 

‘Hey Jean,’ he said happily.

He sent sparkles into my belly. ‘Hi, uhm, let me grab my jacket.’ I rushed back inside, grabbed my black leather jacket, and got back outside. ‘Thanks for picking me up,’ I mumbled. 

He was still smiling; maybe that was all he did. ‘My pleasure.’ 

‘A real gentleman,’ I joked. 

He rolled his eyes, laughing. ‘This is mine,’ he said, pointing to a dorky red car. 

‘Of course it is.’ 

‘What? What’s wrong with my car?’ 

‘Nothing, it just fits.’ 

We drove towards the first thrift shop slowly. Marco had some stupid Christmas jazz playing, which I couldn’t exactly object to. If Marco wanted to make my Christmas really Christmassy; I wouldn’t stop him. He drove calmly, which I somehow found insanely attractive. Everything about him made me calm. He talked slowly, asked me about my life. I told him about my illustration job. He loved that, asked all about it. He told me that he was back to studying, and that he worked next to it. He did everything and nothing; but everything with nature was completely his thing. 

Like that we chatted until he parked near the thrift shop. It had started snowing again, very softly. I hurried to the front door, he followed right behind me.

‘So what do you want to get?’, he asked as we walked inside. 

The shop came as a wave of warmth. It was quite busy. I was quickly overwhelmed by the amount of books, clothes, decoration. There were some extremely bad Christmas song covers playing. ‘I don’t know. You’re the expert.’ 

He laughed. ‘Am I now? Is this your first Christmas tree or something?’ 

‘My ex boyfriend took my stuff. I told you that.’ 

He held my eyes for a second. That was easy; I had a hard time pulling away from his beautiful eyes. ‘Oh- I’m sorry.’ 

I bumped my shoulder against his. ‘Don’t worry about it. We weren’t in love anymore, we hadn’t been in a long time.’ 

He caught my arm, held it. ‘Sounds like a really good step then.’ 

‘Yeah, I guess it is.’ 

He took my hand, which sent shivers through my spine, and pulled me towards the Christmas stuff. There was.. a lot. I didn’t even care about the Christmas stuff; Marco was holding my hand. His hands were all that I had expected; big, warm, a little rough. That was great. 

But he let go of my hand as soon as he had dragged me towards the decoration. ‘You’ll have to get the lights at the supermarket. These are probably horrible,’ he said. 

‘I mean, all of Christmas has been horrible so far, they’ll fit right in.’ 

Marco looked at me, pulled me a little closer and bumped his shoulder against mine. ‘Not everything.’ He picked up an incredibly ugly Santa-doll for in the tree. ‘How can you call this horrible?’ 

I snorted. ‘I can’t. That can only be called fucking horrifying.’ 

Marco laughed. ‘But seriously. You’ll get there. You got your Christmas tree by yourself, we’re shopping for stuff, we can go get some warm Choco.’ 

Maybe he was right. I couldn’t help but stare at him because of it. ‘You should be a Christmas angel.’ 

‘Surprise! I am.’ He moved back to the aisle. ‘What colour do you want? Red, white? Cotton, glass?’ 

‘This is so freaking hard.’ 

Marco chuckled. ‘I’ll pick out the ugliest stuff if you don’t pick.’ 

‘Please just fucking do.’ 

Marco laughed, grabbed an ugly gremlin/elf-looking thing. He said: ‘This is will be you if you keep being grumpy.’ 

I threw the elf into my basket, picked a Christmas angel from the pile. ‘This is you,’ I said.

‘That’s actually kind of sweet.’ 

‘It’s impossible to be rude to you. You’re too nice.’ 

Marco blushed, bumped shoulders with me once again. We came closer and closer. Picking out stuff we thought was ugly, funny or simply beautiful. Marco got things he thought were special. He told me to get some extra bows, maybe some filling. 

‘You’re an artist, you should be able to do this.’ 

‘I’ll mail my customers some matching Christmas balls next time. I’m sure they’ll love that.’ 

This made him laugh even more. That’s just how the ‘date’ was; we laughed, played around, bumped shoulders. Marco was lovely.

As soon as we had gotten all our ugly decorations he asked me for some hot chocolate. We walked towards the city center. He held my hand and I let him. The snow fell on top of our heads; ruining my hair and making him look cute as hell. I couldn’t even be cold; I was too focussed on him by my side. 

When was the last time someone had made me feel like that? It had been a long fucking time ago. If not never. Even days like these had always felt so.. dull.

‘What are you doing for Christmas?’ Marco asked me.

I looked at our feet. We were walking in sinc. ‘Nothing, really. My mom is out of the country with her lover and I didn’t tell her that my boyfriend broke up with me. I didn’t want to ruin it for her.’ 

Marco smiled. ‘You shouldn’t put others before yourself, Jean.’ 

I shrugged. ‘It’s whatever.’ 

‘No it’s not.’ He pulled me in a little closer by my hand, put his arm around me. ‘You need hot chocolate milk.’ 

I laughed. ‘Maybe I do.’ 

‘Definitely.’ He pulled me to a small cottage-looking place. It was completely Christmas decorated, cheesy even. Marco was beaming, he loved this kind of stuff. He walked to the bar, pulled me with him. ‘Can I get two hot-choco’s? Large?’ 

I chuckled. ‘Marco..’ 

‘Oh! And maybe like a waffle, do you have that?’ The person behind the bar kept nodding, grinning, putting stuff on the counter for him. ‘You’re not lactose intolerant are you?’ he asked me.

I laughed. ‘I would have told you.’

Marco carried the boxes with decoration inside my house and put them underneath the tree. 

‘Looks good.’ He said, looking at the empty tree. 

‘Gee thanks.’

Marco turned towards me, suddenly a lot calmer. ‘Listen, Jean.. I had a really nice time today.’ 

‘Aren’t you staying? You’ve got to help me decorate.’ 

And so he did. I put on some coffee for him while he decided to put the Christmas lights in. Something I was grateful for; I didn’t want that kind of stress in my life. Though Marco seemed to handle the lights pretty well. Up until now I had only seen people fighting with them. ‘You’re so calm.’ 

‘Christmas angel, I told you.’ 

I laughed, moved the coffee into the living room and lit a few candles. ‘Angel you are. Tree looks great, are we done?’ 

Marco laughed. ‘C’mon, Jean. You might be great at decorating.’ 

‘I probably am. Give me the balls.’ 

‘Eager aren’t we?’ Marco joked, but held out the bag of decoration anyway. 

I took the decoration from him. ‘Shut up, you idiot.’

Marco poured two cups of coffee, came back to the tree. I put in the angel first, which made Marco chuckle, and then I put in the Christmas gremlin-elf. ‘They’re friends,’ I said. 

That made Marco laugh even more. He got out a cotton heart we had bought, put it in between the angel and the elf. ‘They like each other.’ 

‘Yeah?’ I asked Marco. 

He nodded. ‘Yeah.’ 

I looked at the ball I was holding, Marco followed my gaze. Then, very slowly, I laid down the Christmas ball and walked into Marco’s arms. He held me right away, pulled me into a soft hug. ‘Sorry,’ I whispered. 

‘It’s okay.’ 

‘I thought my Christmas was going to be shit.’ I mumbled, barely hearable, into his sweater. ‘But this is kind of nice.’ 

‘Let’s do this again.’ 

I looked up. ‘Yeah. Let’s do that.’ 

Marco smiled kindly. ‘You know.. you could come celebrate Christmas with me.’ 

A nervous rush went through me. I pulled back as quick as I could. ‘No. No, I had fun but I’m not meeting your fucking family. Marco, are you fucking in-’ 

‘No! Holy- Jean, I mean with my friends. We’re having a get together with friends!’ 

‘So not your mum?’ 

‘No mums. Well except from my friend Sasha, she’s pregnant. But none of our mums.’ 

I laughed in relief. ‘Oh my God, you’re an idiot.’ 

‘I know. So?’ 

‘I don’t want to push myself on you guys.’ 

When I said that, Marco pulled back and dramatically pointed at the tree. ‘You said that they’re friends! So we are too!’

I looked at the gremlin-elf and the angel. ‘ I said that they like each other. There’s obviously a heart.’ 

‘My point still stands,’ Marco said with a big grin. 

I stared at him, Marco was just smiling sweetly. I sighed dramatically, said: ‘You know what? Whatever. My Christmas can’t become an even bigger shitshow, let’s rumble.’ 

‘Yeah?’ 

‘Hm, yeah.’ I leaned in a little. 

‘Are you going to kiss me?’ 

I pointed at the tree, not pulling back. ‘They’re us. There’s a heart, obviously.’ 

Marco laughed, almost against my lips. ‘I guess you’re right. There is.’ 

With that he closed the distance between us, kissed my lips softly. That did it; it made me realize how long I hadn’t felt a goddamn thing in the world. My belly turned. I pulled Marco a little closer, snuggled my fucking nose with his; I didn’t care anymore. I wanted his warmth. 

When we pulled back he was smiling. ‘Hm.. Don’t think this is a part of some special Christmas tree delivery.’ 

I chuckled. ‘Don’t think I go around enjoying Christmas everyday.’ 

Marco pecked my lips softly. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed that! Comments are nice.


End file.
